Unpaid bill leads to costly video game battle

1of10An unpaid bill in the role-playing game "EVE Online" led to a virtual space battle involving thousands of players with losses in real money - about $300,000.Photo: HOEP

2of10FILE - This undated publicity file image provided by CCP Games shows a screenshot from the game "EVE Online." An unpaid bill in the online role-playing game "EVE Online" has led to a virtual space battle involving thousands of players with losses equaling more than $150,000 in real-world money. The siege on Monday, Jan. 27, 2014 marks the bloodiest battle in the game's 10-year history. (AP Photo/CCP Games)Photo: Uncredited, HOEP

3of10FILE - This undated publicity file image provided by CCP Games shows a screenshot from the game "EVE Online." An unpaid bill in the online role-playing game "EVE Online" has led to a virtual space battle involving thousands of players with losses equaling more than $150,000 in real-world money. The siege on Monday, Jan. 27, 2014 marks the bloodiest battle in the game's 10-year history. (AP Photo/CCP Games)Photo: Uncredited, HOEP

4of10FILE - This undated publicity file image provided by CCP Games shows a screenshot from the game "EVE Online." An unpaid bill in the online role-playing game "EVE Online" has led to a virtual space battle involving thousands of players with losses equaling more than $150,000 in real-world money. The siege on Monday, Jan. 27, 2014 marks the bloodiest battle in the game's 10-year history. (AP Photo/CCP Games, File)Photo: Uncredited, HOEP

6of10CAPTION CORRECTION, CORRECTS CAPTION TO COSTLY, INSTEAD OF WITH LOSSES EQUALING MORE THAN $150,000 - FILE - This undated publicity file image provided by CCP Games shows a screenshot from the game "EVE Online." An unpaid bill in the online role-playing game "EVE Online" has led to a virtual space battle involving thousands of players with costly losses in real-world money. The siege on Monday, Jan. 27, 2014, marks the bloodiest battle in the game's 10-year history. (AP Photo/CCP Games, File)Photo: Uncredited, HOEP

7of10CAPTION CORRECTION, CORRECTS CAPTION TO COSTLY, INSTEAD OF WITH LOSSES EQUALING MORE THAN $150,000 - FILE - This undated publicity file image provided by CCP Games shows a screenshot from the game "EVE Online." An unpaid bill in the online role-playing game "EVE Online" has led to a virtual space battle involving thousands of players with costly losses in real-world money. The siege on Monday, Jan. 27, 2014, marks the bloodiest battle in the game's 10-year history. (AP Photo/CCP Games, File)Photo: Uncredited, HOEP

8of10FILE - This undated publicity file image provided by CCP Games shows a screenshot from the game "EVE Online." An unpaid bill in the online role-playing game "EVE Online" has led to a virtual space battle involving thousands of players with costly losses in real-world money. The siege on Monday, Jan. 27, 2014, marks the bloodiest battle in the game's 10-year history. (AP Photo/CCP Games, File)Photo: Uncredited, HOEP

9of10CAPTION CORRECTION, CORRECTS CAPTION TO COSTLY, INSTEAD OF WITH LOSSES EQUALING MORE THAN $150,000 FILE - This undated publicity file image provided by CCP Games shows a screenshot from the game "EVE Online." An unpaid bill in the online role-playing game "EVE Online" has led to a virtual space battle involving thousands of players with costly losses in real-world money. The siege on Monday, Jan. 27, 2014, marks the bloodiest battle in the game's 10-year history. (AP Photo/CCP Games)Photo: Uncredited, HOEP

10of10FILE - This undated publicity file image provided by CCP Games shows a screenshot from the game "EVE Online." An unpaid bill in the online role-playing game "EVE Online" has led to a virtual space battle involving thousands of players with costly losses in real-world money. The siege on Monday, Jan. 27, 2014, marks the bloodiest battle in the game's 10-year history. (AP Photo/CCP Games)Photo: Uncredited, HOEP

LOS ANGELES - James Carl was asleep when the first shot was fired.

As he slumbered away in Costa Mesa, Calif., the 29-year-old banker's virtual space fleet was under siege Monday morning last week in what's become the most expensive battle in the 10-year history of "EVE Online," the gargantuan online sci-fi video game.

"EVE Online" - with more than 500,000 players from around the world piloting starships, trading goods and engaging in galactic espionage - utilizes its own in-game currency.

The skirmish first erupted after a member of Carl's coalition missed a payment to protect an area that's been used as a staging ground for a war raging between Carl's Pandemic and N3 coalition versus CFC and Russian forces.

'Out of control'

"Supposedly, it was set up for auto-pay, just like any other bill in real life, but either that didn't happen or the money wasn't in the wallet, and then everything just escalated out of control from there," Carl said.

The battle ended after 21 hours of virtual warfare.

"EVE" developer CCP Games says the CFC and Russian forces won the encounter that ended up causing 11 trillion dollars' worth of damage in "EVE" currency, which equals $300,000 to $330,000 in real-world money.

During the encounter, 75 Titan vessels were destroyed. The megaships are worth about $3,000 each. The Titans also take months for gamers to build. That's months in real time: a lot of nights, weekends and days-off spent constructing the virtual warships.

Carl was awakened by a messaging app on his phone used by alliance members alerting him that their system was under attack. He wasn't scheduled to work in real life Monday, so he spent the day sending virtual ships into the fray. He said dozens of his alliance members took off work to join the fight, which was waged by more than 4,000 players - and viewed by thousands more on the game-streaming service Twitch.

"I'd be lying if I said our servers weren't sweating a bit," said "EVE Online" spokesman Ned Coker of CCP Games, the Reykjavik, Iceland-based video game developer that created the online universe.

To compensate for thousands of starship captains battling each other online, Coker said CCP Games instituted what it calls "time dilation," which slows down the game's servers to 10 per- cent of normal time, so players weren't dropped and their commands were issued in the order in which they were received.

Massive but slow

Carl said it has made for a massive but slow battle.

The real-world value of "EVE" currency is based on an actual exchange rate set within the game. However, if players want a shortcut, they can put real-world money into the game to buy "EVE" currency and equipment, as determined by the exchange rate.

Meanwhile, Carl is optimistic his coalition will recover from the latest "EVE" upheaval and "start another war."